Island parcels for sale

Emilio Cirelli has been a real estate investor the past 24 years, selling homes, lots, and even island property.

By Bob Koslowbob.koslow@news-jrnl.com

Emilio Cirelli has been a real estate investor the past 24 years, selling homes, lots, and even island property that he has purchased, primarily at tax-deed sales.Among the Ormond Beach resident’s current 60-plus Volusia County holdings is a 3-acre parcel of undeveloped land on a 160-acre mangrove island in the middle of Halifax River in Port Orange.He and his partners also own 1.3 acres on a 16-acre island in the Halifax River, just south of the Flagler County line, near Ormond Beach.“The prices were right and I’ve just always wanted to own an island,” Cirelli said. “I would like to build on them, but the cost is prohibitive to me so they’re for sale.”His first purchases of island property were 3.8-acre and 1.1-acre tracts on a 129-acre low island along the Intracoastal Waterway in Jacksonville, four miles south of the St Johns River.“That got me excited and so I kept looking for others to buy that might be developed,” he said.Ten years ago, he and some partners bought the island property in Port Orange, 1.6 miles south of the Dunlawton Avenue bridge, for $11,150 from the state’s Inland Water Navigation District.The unnamed marsh island was used in the 1930s to deposit dredge material when the Intracoastal Waterway channel was deepened. Over time, vegetation grew on the island’s northern tip, which is about 4.5 feet above sea level. The island is along the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway, roughly parallel on the east with the Boondocks Restaurant and the Adventure Yacht Harbor Marina in Wilbur-by-the-Sea.Cirelli bought out his then-partners and went to talk to Port Orange city officials about what he could do with the island property. Around the same time he and another group of partners bought the property on the island near the Flagler County line for $765.“My vision (for the Port Orange property) was to have elevated rental cabins all interconnected with elevated boardwalks tied to one central dock,” Cirelli said. “They would be 12 feet off the ground so as not to damage the vegetation.”But what Cirelli and his partners didn’t know then was the federal government had placed spoil-right easements on the man-made islands for future dredge deposits. The owners had to apply and pay the federal government to have those easements released on the portions they owned.“They only released them because I asked. It took a long time, a lot of red tape and a lot of meetings,” Cirelli said.The Port Orange island property has a small sandy beach that’s been used for years by boaters and campers.“I once put up 20 “No Trespassing” signs and a few weeks later they were all gone,” Cirelli said.What can be developed on the land is unknown as Cirelli has not tested the process of obtaining building permits from Port Orange or Volusia County.“The city has welcomed me with open arms as long as I comply with all their (land-use) codes,” he said.Anyone can apply for site plans and building permits, said Palmer Panton, Volusia County’s director of planning and development, approvals are another thing.“It seems pretty difficult for sure,” Panton said of the island property Cirelli and his partners own near Flagler County. “Buying an island might seem great until faced with issues of water, power and waste. I would think those things would be hard to overcome.”In 2008, local appraisal firm Hamilton & Jacobs evaluated the island property in Port Orange for the Inland Water Navigation District to determine the value of the spoil-right easement.“The highest and best use is recreational with little or no alterations to the site”’ the appraisers wrote. “While some future development is possible, the hazard to property and human life is so great as to make potential permanent future use highly speculative.”Zoning classifications of conservation in Port Orange and resource corridor in Volusia County also throw up development hurdles.Cirelli understands it will not be cheap for anyone to buy his island in Port Orange. He won’t take less than $1 million, he said. He won’t say what he’ll take for the island property near the Flagler County line.Besides the purchase price, there’s the cost of engineering and permitting any structures plus the high construction cost considering all material has to be shipped to the location. Cirelli also said he might have to sign waivers regarding fire, ambulance and garbage pickup services.“It’s possible. There’s room for septic. But you have to be pretty wealthy,” Cirelli said of developing the Port Orange property. “It may not be worth it to a lot of people, but I’m sure there is someone out there that wants to have some exclusivity, a one-of-a-kind.”

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